Veteran's Day is a holiday with little fanfare here in the Bay Area. Many locals will let the day come and go just like it did last year, without really understanding how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have impacted the region. To celebrate Veteran's Day, The Bay Citizen put together some interesting local statistics. Take a look at the numbers, you might be surprised:
- 29,669: Number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans living in the Bay Area
- 29,126: Number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans using the VA health care system in Northern California
- 10,243: Number of Northern California Iraq and Afghanistan veterans receiving mental health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs
- 8,671: Number of calls in Northern California to the veterans' suicide hotline from January to July 2011
- 93: Number of Bay Area veterans under 35 who died between 2005 and 2009
- 2,700: Number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans using the GI Bill to attend college or university in the Bay Area
Head over to BayCitizen.org to read more.
